Chapter 42: Chapter 42

Raymond knocked on Hazel's door. As soon as it opened, she saw the figure of Edward, who frowned at his arrival, telling him to enter.

'Why are you here?' Edward walked ahead of him, stroking the nape of his neck back onto Hazel's bed, which was full of pieces of strange things he did not recognize. Raymond closed the door slowly, following Edward and Hazel, who were busy with their business again.

'Seeing you, Ed. Can't I?'

The man's hand, who was assembling the components-whatever-it-was, suddenly stopped, as did Hazel, who averted her eyes from her laptop screen.

'What were you saying just now?' asked Edward, turning to him this time.

'Is there something wrong with what I said earlier?' Raymond asked back.

The man immediately shook his head, then put on a sneer at Hazel, who now looked annoyed, and looked back at him. 'Try calling my name again.'

He complied, calling out the man's name once again.

'Yey, I'm one point ahead of you,' Edward smiled happily at Hazel, who was preparing to throw a pillow at him. Then the man invited him to join them.

'What are you doing?' Raymond took one of the prototypes that Edward had assembled, half-finished the size of two fingers.

'Drones,' they said, in unison.

'But this is really small in size. Why don't you just buy it?' Raymond put it back on the bed, then his gaze shifted to Hazel's laptop screen.

'The size in the market is still too big, and the durability is still lacking. We're working on something that can last even longer. About five years,' said Hazel, without taking her eyes off the computer screen, wearing brown-rimmed glasses that made the woman look much older than her actual age.

'Five years?'

Hazel nodded. 'And it will fly silently, so the enemy won't notice it. We will fill some of the drones with nerve-numbing gas later. The rest I programmed to improve the security system in this mansion.'

'Oh.'

'You just need to wait here,' said Hazel.

Raymond nodded. He glanced quietly at Edward, who looked serious when assembling the drones. In his eyes, the man looked really cool. He just found out that the man could also assemble something this complicated. His eyes moved along the man's slender hands, his collarbones, his green eyes that were hidden behind the magnifying glasses the man was wearing so he could see the tiny parts he had assembled. Then his eyes stopped on Edward's thin lips. He swallowed hard, enjoying the scenery beside him at this time.

'Is there something on my face?'

Edward's voice immediately stopped his observation. Hurriedly he lowered his head, turning his gaze in another direction. 'No. Nothing.'

'Are you curious?' Edward took off the glasses he was wearing, then handed him the finished assembly. 'You can try it if you want.'

It seemed that the man had misunderstood his reason for observing the man's face figure, but he decided to not bother with it. 'Is that okay?'

Edward nodded, then turned to Hazel. 'I've planted the chips. We are going to test the first prototype.'

'Okay,' Hazel glanced at the drone in Raymond's hand, nodding understandingly. The woman's hand moved quickly on the keyboard again, then pressed the 'Enter' key. 'Raymond, throw it now.'

'Throw?'

Hazel nodded. He threw the drone, which immediately flew smoothly around the room. As they said earlier. The drone was flying without noise, and it did not look suspicious due to its small size. Edward seemed satisfied with the result, asking Hazel to lower the drone back at Raymond.

'Successful for our first try!' Hazel and Edward clapped their hands together, relieved by the result.

'How was that? Cool, isn't it?' they said again, in unison, making them look like twins rather than old friends.

'Really!' Raymond nodded happily, staring at the tiny object in his palm, motionless because Hazel had shut down the program. He gave it back to Edward while he put his arm around their shoulders at the same time.

'You guys are really cool! I can't possibly do this,' he said, then confusedly looking at the two of them, who now looked a little flushed. 'What's wrong?'

'No. Nothing!' they replied again.

Raymond frowned, removing his arm from the shoulders of the two of them. 'When can you finish making it?'

'Around two hours,' Edward put his glasses back on. 'If you want to sleep first, go ahead.'

Raymond shook his head. 'There's no time to sleep.'

'We'll wake up later, don't worry,' said Hazel, who had also turned her gaze back to the laptop screen.

Raymond narrowed his eyes, staring at the two of them alternately. 'You two. Can you stop treating me like a child?'

The two of them looked at each other, then looked back at Raymond. 'What? We're just worried about you.'

'I told you yesterday. I. Am. Fine. No need to worry me,' Raymond rolled his eyes, then got out of bed, walked towards the chair located in front of the bed. 'I'll be waiting here.'

He sat down, took out the smartphone and black wireless earphones that he always carried with him, opened the RPG game application on his smartphone that he had not played in a long time while waiting for the two of them to finish their work.

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